ENVIRONMENT; No Trees Were Harmed In Evicting These Birds

By JENNIFER WEISS

Published: August 6, 2006

ON a Monday evening late last month, a group gathered in the parking lot next to the Hillsdale firehouse to see if three men armed with chemicals could solve a conflict that for years pitted firefighters against birds and neighbors against neighbors.

Starlings and sparrows, perhaps hundreds of them, roosted in the pear trees in the parking lot. There they had annoyed the borough's volunteer firefighters, who parked their clean cars in the lot only to drive them home covered with bird droppings. The firefighters' concerns had been brought before the Borough Council more than once.

''It's been a nightmare,'' said Fred Winkler, who after 59 years with the Fire Department is its longest-serving member. ''You get done with a meeting and you come out and your car is covered. And if you don't wash it off that night, to get it off the next day is quite a job.''

Several years ago, the trees were pruned in an effort to unseat the birds. But that did not work for long, said Fire Chief Max Arnowitz, who is also a councilman; the birds returned with the new growth.

In October, Chief Arnowitz suggested at a council meeting that the trees be cut down. Despite opposition from a number of residents, the council voted in December to remove the trees and plant something else in their place.

But some residents continued to oppose the plan, phoning and e-mailing the council to express their disapproval. Grace Behringer suggested that not all 18 of the trees be cut down, saying they helped maintain the small-town charm of this Bergen County borough. ''I like flora and fauna and appreciate what nature gives us, and it always looks better than a paved parking lot,'' she said. Jack Stubbs, the chairman of the borough's Environmental Commission, suggested that the trees be pruned again, not removed.

''They are beautiful trees,'' Chief Arnowitz said. ''It's just that it's very frustrating.''

So Chief Arnowitz said he was relieved when Hillsdale got an offer of free help from Stuart Aust, the president of Bug Doctor Termite and Pest Control in Paramus, which has a Bird Doctor division.

Mr. Aust said he called the borough after reading an article in The Record of Bergen County about the conflict. He uses a product with methyl anthranilate, a naturally occurring compound found in grapes, to repel starlings, sparrows, geese and crows. (The manufacturer of the repellent, which is permitted in New Jersey and Connecticut, intends to try to get it registered for use as an aerosol in New York as well.) Mr. Aust said he had used methyl anthranilate with success at hospitals, refineries and homes, and even to drive geese from his in-laws' backyard in Westwood.

That Monday evening, Jake Dickenman of Bird Doctor sent plumes of a methyl anthranilate fog into the pear trees. A faint odor of grape juice turned stale as the minutes passed. Birds darted from the trees individually and in small groups. Bird Doctor came back to spray again the next night.

Salvatore Santamaria Jr. of Bird Doctor said the fog caused the birds to feel a brief mild pain, the avian equivalent of a toothache. ''The initial pain is enough to get the birds to realize the area is no longer a desirable habitat,'' he said.

By the next Monday night, it seemed the birds had gone. The pear trees, which had resonated with their raucous chirping, were silent. And the cars parked beneath the trees were droppings-free.

Photos: BIRD REPELLENT -- Trees in Hillsdale, N.J., were sprayed last month to drive out birds that soiled firefighters' parked cars. (Photographs by Susan Stava for The New York Times)